


Strawberry Cheesecake

by coyotestoryteller



Series: The Crane Wives NaNoWriMo [1]
Category: Original Work, The Crane Wives (Band)
Genre: Banter, F/M, Falling In Love, Past Relationship(s), Songfic, Strangers to Lovers, The Crane Wives NaNoWriMo
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-01
Updated: 2020-11-12
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:13:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 7,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27336223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coyotestoryteller/pseuds/coyotestoryteller
Summary: In which a man who has time to wait meets a Lady who wears heavy boots.
Relationships: Original Female Character/Original Male Character
Series: The Crane Wives NaNoWriMo [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2001391
Comments: 12
Kudos: 7





	1. leave me weakened

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first story I have written for [see-it-all-so-clear's The Crane Wives NaNoWriMo](https://see-it-all-so-clear.tumblr.com/post/633216341263974400/the-crane-wives-nanowrimo%5D)
> 
> I'm not sure where this went, but I hope you enjoy it. The prompt for November 1 is Of Everlong/Pretty Little Things.

She meets him on an early morning. He is nothing but polite, nothing but kind. He makes a bad joke and smiles sheepishly at her; she does not crack a smile. He asks for her name, but she dodges the question-- it’s too soon, it would be too easy for him to find her in this town if he knew her name. 

“All right, mysterious stranger. Keep your secrets,” he says, still smiling like the world is an innately amusing and beautiful thing. The world is many things, she has learned, but it is only occasionally beautiful, and rarely amusing to anyone without a desert-dry wit.

The next day he is sitting on the steps outside of the library and waves to her as she passes, carrying a bag under her arm. The sunlight turns his hair to spun gold.

“Where are you going?” he calls to her.

“The farmer’s market,” she replies in clipped tones, and then, since it seems expected and she would prefer to be thought of as aloof rather than rude, asks “What are you doing?”

He laughs-- it seems to her that this man never does anything but laugh and smile and joke and ask questions. “Sitting on the library steps. It doesn’t open until eleven, so I’m waiting.”

“Who are you that has time to wait?”

“I’m only a man. Specifically, a man who has his day off on Tuesdays, who feels no need to work overtime no matter how interesting his job is, and quite enjoys sitting on the steps watching the town go by. I’m new, you see. I just moved here a few weeks ago.”

“Why’d you move here? To this little sleepy town? And I know you’re new. Of course you’re new. I know everyone in this town. Anyone I can’t name is either a tourist or the sort of odd person who decides to move here.” 

“I moved here because my ex-husband burnt down my house.”

“Well.” There are two main takeaways from that for her; one, that this man is some flavor of queer, and two, that he has awful taste in men. Both of these things are something he has in common with her, which is potentially a reason she shouldn’t mind talking to him more. It also makes him a little bit more trustworthy, someone who has been hurt rather than doing the hurting. His tone is flippant, but there’s a sting behind the words-- guilt? Regret? The simple and blunt pain of losing? She’s not sure.

He winces. “Yes. I deserved it, don’t pity me.”

“What on _earth_ did you do to merit your house being burned down?”

When he smiles, the sunlight glints off his teeth. It’s obvious that he cares an enormous amount about them-- which, she reminds herself firmly, is not a bad thing. She takes just as much care with the brightly colored dye in her hair. “What do you think?”

She sits on the step next to him. “Perhaps you stole his family’s prized antique jewels?”

She, unlike him, has errands to run, and doesn’t have time to wait. She stays anyway. When the library opens at eleven, he stays too, lingering on the steps and chatting away. He never runs out of things to talk about, and she’s certain she won’t run out of quips to throw back at him anytime soon.

At noon, they walk together to the farmer’s market; she buys him a toasted ham and cheese sandwich, and he buys her a spinach-stuffed croissant. They share dessert, a sticky cinnamon roll, and as he leaves, turning back towards the library, he tells her that his name is Cooper. 

Looking back, if she had to pick a point at which the two of them first became well and truly intertwined, she’d choose that sunlit morning. Cooper’s opinion differs, however; if asked, he would choose the day after, when she’d worn a dress in pink, purple, and blue. 

“Those are my colors,” he says, smiling again. “They suit you.” 

“Your colors?” she asks, cocking her head. 

“I’m bisexual,” he says easily, the grin never slipping.

“Oh, so that’s what you meant. They’re mine as well.”

Cooper doesn’t seem shocked at all by her last statement, simply holding his hand out for a high-five. “Bi solidarity. What did you think I meant?” 

She slaps his hand, semi-awkwardly. “That you look good in them, or that you’ve somehow purchased the color blue.”

“If I owned the color blue, I’d be a rich man. Rich enough to buy you a bouquet of a thousand flowers.”

“Don’t buy me flowers,” she says, a bit snappishly. His smile wavers, the first time she’s ever seen that from him. “I don’t like to see them die,” she tacks on. 

“Even a flower in a pot?”

“I’m rubbish with plants.”

He winks at her. “Then I’d be rich enough to buy you a thousand spinach croissants.”

On the next weekend, she sees Cooper from the window of her little house on the corner near the park at near dawn. He’s walking quickly, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. She’s already been up for hours, rattling around the rooms of her house in heavy boots. Laces and thick rubber soles have always been her strongest ally; she takes great pleasure in knowing that the thunderous footsteps in the hallway are hers alone.

When he passes her house for the third time, she slips out the back gate and meets him on the street. “Are you lost?”

The air is quite still, but he kicks up leaves from the pavement when he turns. They settle back to the ground immediately. “How nice to see you here.”

“Are you lost?” she asks again, rather than say something like “It’s nice to see you too,” which she’s doesn’t think he would believe.

He plucks at the collar of his shirt. “It seems that I am, in fact, lost. I’m trying to find the bus stop-- I don’t need to go anywhere, but I will on Monday, for a meeting, and I would rather like not to be late.”

“I can show you if you need me to.” 

Her tone is devoid of all warmth, but he still runs up to her like an excited puppy. “ _Please,_ Lady.”

Since he’s now only a foot away from her, she’s struck by how blue his eyes are in the dawn light. She’s never particularly cared for blue eyes, but his are quite nice; a deep color, like the ocean. “Lady?”

“You haven’t told me your name, so what else am I to call you? Would you prefer Madam? Miss? Beautiful?”

“Lady will do,” she says sharply. “You needn’t be extravagant. I’ll take you to the bus stop.”

“Well, you are beautiful. I don’t think it’s extravagant.”

The stare she gives him is cold enough that he’s much quieter on the way there, but when she turns to leave him, he calls after her. “Thank you, Lady. And I like your boots!”

“Thank you!” she shouts back.

They meet in the street the following week. He nearly runs into her, but stops short of bowling her over. “Good morning, Lady. How are you doing?” Before she can get out a single answering word, he continues. “Would you care for a coffee? I’ve never been to this place, and I wouldn’t like to go alone, in case there are unspoken rules and I make a fool of myself.” He’s pointing at the little French-style cafe across the way.

“I don’t drink coffee.”

“Tea, then? Or a croissant? I’ll pay.”

She gives him a little smile. “You don’t need to. You’re interesting to talk to.”

He puffs up with pride. “Oh, have I impressed you?”

“Absolutely not. I still believe none of what you say and I’m waiting for you to reveal that you’ve actually murdered your ex-husband and hence fled the scene. Everything you’ve ever said to me might in fact be simply information for me to give to the police once you burn down half the town.”

“If I were going to burn down half the town, I wouldn’t be in cahoots with someone as sharp-witted as you.”

She does not smile, and she does not believe him, but she allows him to buy her a chocolate croissant, on the condition that she purchase his coffee.

The two of them fall into a routine. They meet on Tuesdays and go to a restaurant or a cafe for lunch-- always a different one, always one unfamiliar to him. They converse; he flirts and jokes and always tries to get her to return his smile. He’s successful once or twice nearly every time. “Tuesdays are Lady days,” he says once, and she cannot pretend that it doesn’t give her a little thrill of pleasure to know that Cooper thinks of her on other days of the week.

“I read a book once,” he says over strawberry cheesecake at the Ivory Mountain.

She feigns surprise. “Oh, really? You, the full-time book reviewer?”

“ _Lady._ I have read many books in my life. But I once read a book which contained a particular line that popped into my head just now.”

“Well, don’t keep it to yourself. What was the line?”

“‘ _I store my soul in my mother’s kitchen garden’._ It always gets me thinking. The character in this book had left her soul behind in her dead mother’s house, back in Italy, and in America, she was lost and alone and missing her past. If your soul-- the core of who you are, the entirety of your being-- were kept somewhere, where would it be?”

She considers this for a moment, taking a bite of cheesecake. “In my boots. I’ve spent a long time fighting to get myself back, so I’d keep my soul close. What about you?”

He shrugs. “I suppose at the moment, in my outstretched hand. But I used to leave it in the hands of my former husband. What is the point of living if there isn’t someone you love to give your soul away to? Take my voice, take my spirit, take everything. I was never meant to hole myself up and keep it to myself anyway.”

“Who would you give it to, if you could? Do you have someone in mind?”

For once, he isn’t smiling. His face is stone-cold and perfectly serious. “I do. If she’d take it, I’d give myself to her.”

At that, she nearly offers him her hand, but it’s just then that the waiter comes with their bill. He offers to pay it, and for once she acquiesces, staring out into the empty street. When she takes her leave, he calls “Goodbye, Lady,” after her, and she stops, turns on the heel of her boot, and raises a hand. “I’ll see you, Cooper.”


	2. sometimes i just can't help myself

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> November 2: Nothing At All/Allies or Enemies
> 
> In which Lady is regretful, Cooper opens up, and they disagree about the merits of sushi.

In the afternoon on Main Street, in the little sleepy town that she's called home for almost a year now, the sunlight glints off the roads as if they're made of gold. "Maybe this is the Promised Land," Cooper says, as they sit on a bench in Park Street Square. "Sure feels like it was for me."

"What do you mean?"

It'd come out too harsh, too close to a door in the face or a stuffy and overly formal declaration of independence or indifference, and he looks a bit off-put by it. "Only that I've gotten so much more work done these days, now that there's fewer people to bother me. Less traffic, too. When I lived in the city, the cars used to always keep me awake at night."

"Yes, when you lived in the city," she teases. "When-Cooper-Lived-in-The-City, he lived like a king in a whole house all by himself, little ratty dogs scratched on his front door, and he bought bagels at the corner shop, which are the only thing New York City cooks better than they cook here."

"Well, the sushi restaurant here leaves something to be desired, that's for sure."

"Have you tried them?" She looks at him inquisitively. "I definitely didn't take you. I'd only eat sushi if you paid me."

"Why's that? Scared of eating raw fish?"

She snorts. "I eat rare steak. I eat caviar. I'll eat plenty of raw meat and stereotypically inedible parts of animals. It's just that I don't approve of that white sticky rice they always have."

"Well, if you appreciated good sushi, you would know that the restaurant on Platt Street is thoroughly mediocre."

"I'll just have to take your word for it."

He grins at her, then lets out a heavy sigh and adjusts himself on the bench. "But if I'm being entirely serious, I miss more about the city than the sushi restaurants and the bagel places."

For a moment, they sit together without speaking, the only sound the tapping of her boots on the brickwork. The wind sighs through the square, ruffling Cooper's hair. It's nearly a source of amusement for her, the ridiculousness of how his hair always looks nice, no matter how messy it is.

"Are you going to elaborate? Tell me what you miss about The City besides the food?"

He shrugs. When he finally speaks, it comes out a lot softer than his normal speaking tone, and she has to strain to hear him. "I think mostly it's that I miss the person I was there. I miss waking up warm and safe in a cozy bed with someone who cared about me. Pancakes in the morning and laughing with syrup on my face. Domesticity. Dates. Just being in love with someone, and being able to take care of him. I miss that-- putting my heart and soul into a person, instead of reserving it solely for the things I create. Book reviews don't need that much love from me. It's better if they don't have it, actually."

She's not sure what to say. It's always difficult to respond when someone bares their soul in front of you; it's an expression of trust, a power over them handed willingly. Whenever she opens up, even the slightest bit, she always feels like she's just waiting for the other shoe to drop. All is fair in love and war, they say, but love winds its tentacles into the entirety of her life, so it's never just love, never just feelings, never just caring a little bit.

Cooper is looking off into the distance, a wistful expression on his face, and she doesn't want to hurt him. She really doesn't, but force of habit makes her start digging for a blunt-ended jab. Just their usual banter.

"So you miss your ex? That's a bit cliche, if you ask me. Man longs for someone who no longer wants anything to do with him. I'm surprised you haven't rushed back to win back forgiveness with a grand gesture."

It's too much. His face crumples, hurt and betrayal and shock horrifyingly visible in his eyes. There's a sense that if she opened her mouth, her teeth would have become those of an animal, a wild wolf with blood on its jaws, lashing out for no reason, no sense of right and wrong.

The problem is that she does have a moral compass, and it's pointing firmly away from the things she's just said to Cooper. "I'm sorry," she says, too fast, the words tripping over themselves. And she is.

His teeth are gritted. "That was a low blow, Lady. Please don't go there."

"I know. I shouldn't have. I'm sorry. I swear I didn't mean it." She's said sorry to him twice, but she feels like she should say it again, apologize over and over until he seems to really, truly forgive her. That hasn't worked in the past, though; no one really believes you regret it if you express your sorrow too many times. So instead, she simply sits and waits for Cooper to put himself back together, until he moves on with the conversation like nothing had happened.

At lunchtime on Tuesday they meet at the library and walk together to another restaurant, a Mexican place with beautifully hand-carved chairs and lovely tile floors. She's fanning herself, having nearly burned her tongue off on a large chunk of green chile, when she notices that Cooper hasn't made a single joke for the entirety of their time together.

"Are you doing all right?" she asks cautiously. "You seem-- well, sad."

"I'm not sad," he says immediately, to reassure her that nothing is truly wrong, to put up a calm facade of cheerfulness. She gives him a hard stare for a moment, and he relents. "Maybe a bit. I'm just-- melancholy."

"Why's that?"

He puts his fork down with a soft clink, staring into the half-eaten food in front of him. "Do you ever want nothing?"

"Nothing?" She's a bit confused, but she lets him talk.

"Nothing at all. Sometimes I don't want to feel, to be so much all the time, to throw myself into the world and hope it won't hurt me. Because sometimes it _does_. Sometimes things go wrong, and people stop caring, and I fail, and I make mistakes. And it would all sting much less if I felt nothing from it."

Cooper picks up his fork again and takes a bite of the rice in front of him, but doesn't appear to taste it. She's never been good with words, never had an easy time when someone she cares about is hurting-- and it suddenly dawns on her, the fact that she cares about Cooper, more than as simply a person who makes her smile and cares about food and appreciates the sort of things she barely notices, but as a friend.

"I like your feelings," she says, ever so gently, and he looks up at her in surprise. "You're kind, and you see the beauty in everything, and you show it to me, and I"m glad you do. I'm sorry you get hurt sometimes. You don't deserve it, truly."

Throughout her whole messy life, everything that comes out of her mouth has stuck to her, or spread like wildfire, or taken root throughout the whole world like a pernicious weed. When she says the wrong thing, hurt spreads like a disease, but on the rare occasions when the words in her mouth align with the ticking clock and the compass inside her, they take root like poppies in a cornfield. A beautiful thing, there to stay and spread and grow.

He smiles at her, a wide, delighted smile. "You're kind too, sometimes. And I wouldn't wish my mind on you, but I'm glad you like me."

And all she can do is smile back, because, truly, who wouldn't like Cooper?


	3. when my demons won't let me be

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a Lady reflects.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> November 3: I Talk In My Sleep/Not The Ghost

_"You never listen, do you?" he had said, her heavy-handed man who she had loved dearly. He had said that, and never noticed the screams in her thoughts, the aches knocking around inside her head. And he thought she was the one who never listened-- he was the one who had never noticed that anything had ever been wrong._

"Good morning," she says to her peaceful kitchen, to the rays of sunlight breaking through and casting shadows across the tiles, to her haven of safety and warm, fresh bread. She likes to talk to herself-- always has. She's never been able to keep many of her thoughts unsaid. Even when she was young, she sleep-talked, although no one could ever understand what she was talking about.

_Boots had thundered down the hallway towards her, mud across the floor that they pretended to share. She'd rolled over in bed, stared at the wall, feigned sleep, but if he wanted her, he'd shake her awake._

"Today is Tuesday, isn't it?" No one answers-- of course no one answers, because she's alone. But the calendar is hanging on the wall, days marked off, and, like every morning, she adds another X to it.

_She'd always told herself that it was all fine. Maybe saying it over and over would make it true. "I love you," she'd said, a hundred times, truthfully, and he said it back. When she looked back on it, she didn't know how honest he was when he said it-- but even if he'd meant it, that didn't make it true, and that didn't mean his love was something she could bear, easily or at all._

She smiles to herself. "Tuesday, Cooper day. I'll have to get some extra work done, then." Since she moved to this sunlit, slow-moving town, she's worked as a freelance writer-- mostly nonfiction, work she researches extensively. There's something about the way she can piece together a narrative from conflicting sources and wavering stories, to weave a mess of things into something approaching the truth.

_He had never told the truth, but neither had he lied-- it's always some shade of gray, deception, exaggeration, lies in silence. When he'd been angry at her, it was almost too much to bear. She's never been weak, but he'd chosen not to listen to her protests, until she'd learnt to stifle them herself._

She makes herself breakfast, hot tea, eggs and toast, chopped tomatoes from the garden out front. Cooking gives her some semblance of control over her life, over her environment. In all honesty, she knows her kitchen so well she could cook this meal with her eyes closed, her steady hands guided only by memory and her excellent sense of hearing.

_She'd thought there was no hope for her, no way to escape her heavy-handed man, cracked lips on her skin, calloused fingers on her cheek, words that echoed through the dust of a stifling house. The house she'd told herself they shared (but they truly didn't share it, it had always been his house) felt like a train station, somewhere she should just be passing through, nothing like a home. She'd kept her eyes down, turned down the lamps so she couldn't see into the dark. She'd pretended she had no idea that things could always be worse, that he had never changed. Regrets had built in the pit of her stomach, buried beneath all the mistakes she'd ever made and collected._

_And then she had escaped. She was no longer chained down, hemmed in by pretty words and rough hands on her, no longer scared by thumping boots. The loudest thing in her orbit was now herself._

She sits at her kitchen table, in the only chair that doesn't seem to be about to break, and eats. There's no one to converse with, and she doesn't make a habit of talking to herself while eating, so it's a quiet meal, taken in silence and quickly. When she's finished, she taps her fingernails against the rim of her china plate and thinks on longing.

There is a bluebird whistling in her garden, and she is inside her safe, beautiful house, which has never been a cage to her. She is thinking of blue eyes, and corn-silk hair, and the things Cooper says that seem to stick to her tongue like honey or peanut butter. It's far too easy to pick up the speech patterns of someone you've befriended (it's still odd, to think of Cooper as being her friend) and even easier when their idiosyncrasies are delicious as spun sugar.

_Still, although she'd escaped, she still found it difficult to allow herself to want things, to dive into the world after the things she longed for most. Trust is a fragile thing, and the mechanisms that produce it even more delicate. Even though she rarely thinks on the past these days, she can't deny that fear haunts her more than any ghost or monster or demon ever could._

But it was a Cooper day, and he was lovely to talk to, even if it was getting harder and harder to keep him at a safe distance.


	4. i gave you everything i had

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> November 5: The Glacier House/Strangler Fig

The two of them wander together down the street, vaguely in the direction of another restaurant Cooper hasn't yet tried, although he keeps stopping to look in the shop windows. Eventually she resorts to grabbing his hand and pulling him along, which serves to quiet him down as well as keeping him from getting off track. If it weren't' for the fact that touching him makes her heat beat faster in a way she is distinctly not fond of (she can't entirely place what's off-putting about it, and she doesn't think she wants to know) there would be no downside to it.

The restaurant is an unassuming place on the corner at the edge of the downtown. The sign reads _Strangler Fig Cafe_ in curling iron letters, and the path up to the door is lined with bramblebushes. They get a table; since it's a weekday, the restaurant isn't crowded, and they don't have to wait long. The restaurant has outdoor seating behind the building, hemmed in by the same sort of tangled shrubbery that grows out front.

Cooper isn't looking at his menu yet, instead choosing to pay attention to their surroundings. "It's a bit gloomy, isn't it? But in a pretty way. Gothic, almost."

She nods. "I think it's meant to be like that-- all spiky and iron and dark. Seems almost a shame that it's so nice out. It doesn't fit the aesthetics of the cafe at all."

"It does." He fumbles to pick up his menu. "Have you ever eaten here?"

"Yes. A few times, but never with anyone, and I've never gotten a table-- only eaten at the bar inside."

"Under what circumstances were you eating alone here? And is the food any good?"

"The food is lovely," she says slowly, pondering her next words. "And I was here alone because I was a bit emotional at the time."

He sets down the menu, expression slowly shifting into something sympathetic. "Going through it? Was the food decadent enough to drown your sorrows in it?"

"I was fine," she says, a bit snappishly, then takes a deep breath. She doesn't want to be too cruel to Cooper again. _Rein yourself in._ "But-- if I were to be doing any sorrow-drowning, then or in the future, I would go here. Their broccoli cheese soup is excellent."

He laughs. "Noted. If and when I have sorrows that need to be drowned, I shall be sure to drown them in a bowl of broccoli cheese soup."

She smiles at him, and the moment is smoothed over. _See? That was easy._ It's easy to be with him, most of the time; he seems to like her, to like the way she speaks and acts and dresses, and doesn't try to hem her in. And she likes him too, because of that and for various other reasons that she has to put out of her head for the moment, because Cooper is saying something else and she's not listening. "Sorry, what?"

"Did you zone out? I asked if you think the chicken parmesan will be good here."

She snorts. "You want _chicken parmesan_? Here? Get something else/"

"Like what?"

"I don't know, French onion soup. Shrimp scampi. Any of their pasta dishes. Anything but chicken parmesan."

"What do you have against chicken parmesan, Lady? Did a plate of chicken parmesan steal your life savings?"

"Chicken parmesan is wanted for tax evasion in thirty-three states," she says seriously. Somehow, she manages not to smile at all, let alone burst out laughing

He shrugs. "Be gay, do crime. I'm ordering it."

"Cooper, if you order chicken parmesan, I will be very sorry to say that we will no longer be friends." As soon as the words are out of her mouth, she realizes that this is the first time she's called him her friend, and wishes she could go back in time and unsay it, in case he doesn't think of them as friends quite yet.

He doesn't seem to be bothered by it at all, though. "Well, I can't afford to lose your friendship, so I suppose I'll have to get something else."

In the end, he ends up ordering lamb and pasta, while she asks for mussel soup. They have to wait a long time before their food comes, but it doesn't matter, since they enjoy each other's company. It's a rare occasion when they run out of things to talk about, but when they do, the silence is just as companionable with each other there.

Once their meals arrive, they tuck in with gusto, Cooper exclaiming over it every few bites while she struggles to tease the mussels out of their shells.

"God, but I could drown my sorrows in this," he is saying when she looks up from her bowl. "I wouldn't even need broccoli cheese soup."

"What sorrows would you be drowning?" She hesitates for a moment. "Not that you have to tell me. If that's too far--"

He waves her off. "No, no, it's fine. Let me think about that." There's a moment of silence while he chews another bite of lamb, seemingly deep in consideration. When he speaks again, it's to answer her question with another question. "Have you ever wanted to close the gate on love forever?"

She shakes her head slowly. "No, I can't say I have."

"I do. I told you this before-- sometimes I wish I didn't care so much."

"And I already told you that I like how much you care."

He smiles bitterly. "What about you? Can we trade? A sorrow for a sorrow, and then drown them both?"

"I suppose it's only fair, after all." She sets her fork down. "Have you ever felt like everyone will use you as soon as they get close?"

He shakes her head but keeps quiet, as if to let her speak. A bird lands in the bramblebush near them.

"It just seems like I'm a framework for greater people to climb on, a foundation to build castles reaching towards the sky, 'til there's nothing left of me."

"You don't deserve to be used like that," he says softly. "And if the foundation slips out from under the castle, they'll have nothing, but you'll still have yourself."

She smiles at him, then, impulsively, reaches out to touch his hand. He stiffens, and she pulls back suddenly, hoping he isn't offended, but he lets it go.

"Wise words," she says, frantic to move on. "But I suppose I should expect that from you."


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> November 6: Hard Sell/Take Me To War

"You can't be serious," she says to herself, standing on the steps of the library on a Sunday morning. "You _can't_ be _serious_."

When Cooper appears at her side, she nearly jumps out of her skin, whirling around to face him. He raises his hands and backs off. "Sorry, Lady. I didn't mean to startle you. I was just wondering what it is that you're so angry about."

She shows him the screen of her phone without a word. "Have you seen this?"

His eyes widen as he takes it in. "No, I have not. What the actual hell is this?"

"This is _ridiculous_. Idiotic. What kind of person decides it's appropriate to put a sign up with this kind of filth on it? This is supposed to be a good place."

"It's all bullshit," he says, nodding. "At least it's only one person, though."

"Oh, no," she says, laughing ruefully. "Once someone put this photo online, people started talking, and half the people in this comment section actually _agree_ with it. They're saying they're proud of these people for having 'the audacity to declare a clear moral stance'."

His hands clench into fists. "Seriously?"

"Yep. So I go into the comment section--"

"Lady."

"What?"

"You do realize you'll never get anywhere by arguing with them, yes?"

"There's no way for you to know that. I can be quite vindictive. Claws and teeth and poison."

"You're nice around me, most of the time. You can even be quite sweet when you feel like it."

She grins at him. "Then I'll be the sweetest thing to ever scare you."

He takes a step back, seemingly unconsciously. "Point taken. So tell me what you said?"

"I said that putting a sign up with this sort of idiocy isn't a moral stance, and they told me to _prove it_ , so I gave them this whole explanation and they said it was too long and they didn't read it. And then some other people got involved, and it's becoming a catastrophic mess. I can't believe any of them. I feel like I'm working with barbed wire and moth wings."

He's nodding. "You're right. You're absolutely in the right. What kind of person puts a sign up like that? Someone should tear it down. Not that I would do such a thing, being new to this town and not wanting to ruin the reputation I don't have, and not that you would do such a thing, being a perfectly decent law-abiding citizen."

There's a beat of silence while she stares at him wordlessly, a slow grin spreading over her face.

"Lady? Are you saying what I think you're saying?"

"I'm not saying anything." Her tone is as innocent as possible, the image of a Perfectly Decent Law-Abiding Citizen ruined only by how toothy her smile is getting to be. "Merely implying it."

He laughs a little. "All right. Where, exactly, is this house?"

"Two streets down from Allenrose Park, on the corner. You can't miss it, with how big the sign is."

"Where, exactly, is Allenrose Park?"

"By Fire Station Number Three."

"This town has more than one fire station?"

She sighs heavily. "Really, Cooper? I thought you'd know your way around by now."

"Well, it seems that I don't. And my guess is that I will know it even less well at midnight."

"Why would you know less of this town at midnight?"

"It'll be dark, presumably, which is good for our purposes, but makes it a bit difficult to read street signs."

"Well, I'm quite sure you can find your way back here, to the library, late in the night. I'll have to lead you on from there, seeing as I'm the one who knows what she's doing."

He salutes, his face so serious she can't tell if he's joking. "That you are, and I have nothing but respect for my lady, being the most competent of the two of us."

She stifles a laugh. "The bumbling, cheerful mess you are, and me. Yes, we're quite a pair."

"Are you sure? I'd think of myself as more of an apple, if we're being honest."

"That was an absolutely _atrocious_ pun. I should end our friendship right here and now."

He smiles wide, his eyes sparkling. "Why don't you wait until tomorrow and see what you think of me then?"

They meet at midnight, at the library. There's a light on in one of the highest rooms, the shadow of a librarian at a desk cast from the window onto the street below. She's dressed warmly, having foreseen how cold it would be once the sun had gone down. The boots she wears are rubber-toed, to allow her to move quietly, and fur-lined. Cooper hasn't made the same judgement calls; he's wearing the same clothes she saw him in earlier that day, a button-up long-sleeved shirt and skinny jeans. He looks nice in them, but he's shivering.

She raises her hand in greeting, and he smiles at her, his teeth still chattering. "Hello, L-lady."

"You didn't bring a coat," she says in answer. "You'll freeze to death before we even get there."

He shrugs. "I'll w-warm up."

"No, you won't." She takes off her outer coat and hands it to him. "You can borrow this. It's big enough that it will probably fit you, since you're not even taller than me."

"That's a low blow," he protests, but he takes the coat anyway.

"You're short enough that only a low blow would hit you." She smirks, satisfied in the knowledge that she's shut him up.

He puts the coat on wordlessly, shoving his hands in his pockets before he finally speaks. "Aren't you going to be cold now that you don't have your coat?"

"I'll live. I had two coats on, because I make good decisions."

"Shall we go, then?"

The sign, when they turn onto the street where it looms over the passers-by like a portent of doom, is barely legible in the darkness. Cooper rushes up to it and stands there staring. "How are we going to get it down?" he hisses.

She shrugs and immediately proceeds to kick the wooden post of the sign, causing it to shake violently for a few seconds. "Maybe if I kick it hard enough it'll fall down."

She kicks it again, drawing a soft bang from it. "That looks like fun," Cooper whispers.

"Then help me kick it," she says, smiling at him, eyes flashing like a wolf's.

Between the two of them, the sign topples over only a moment later, ripping out of the ground and collapsing onto the grass. Cooper bends down and attempts to lift the sign off the ground; realizing that it's too big and unwieldy for him to manage on his own, he looks to her for help. She takes the other end, and together they lift it-- but what then? Neither have any idea what to do with it, so they drop it back to the ground, defeated. It cracks down the center when it hits the grass again, and she can't resist stomping on it. Cooper joins her, and they jump up and down on the sign until it's nothing but splinters, then sneak away.

Someone posts a photo of the wreckage online, the comments fuming, and Cooper can't stop laughing when he shows it to her the following Tuesday.


	6. the trees are crowing hungry, hungry harmonies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> November 7: Know How/Sleeping Giants

Cooper asks for her number in the middle of a long and involved philosophical debate over scones at Sunskin Cafe, and she's so caught off guard she gives it to him without even thinking. For the rest of the lunch, he looks self-satisfied, even when she's proved him wrong in four different ways and he absolutely has to concede defeat on the front of debate. He's still got her cell phone number. That seems to be enough for him.

What she can't fathom is what he's planning to do with it. He doesn't text, doesn't call, doesn't seem to do anything but put her into his contacts and continue on with business as usual. She's almost offended. If he had to ask for her number, make her panic for a few hours afterwards about what he really wants with it, the least he could do is text her.

The other shoe finally drops the following Wednesday, late at night. She's almost asleep, sitting in her kitchen and drinking tea, when she's jolted out of a reverie by the buzzing of her phone against the countertop.

_I know it's not the usual day, but would you like to go somewhere with me tomorrow morning?_

She squints at it. _is this cooper? and if so, where are you planning to take me?_

_Yes, it's Cooper. Hi, Lady. I'm going to the mountains. Are you coming?_

She's momentarily puzzled. _why are you going?_

_I don't know, honestly. It just feels like I need to. I feel something calling me._

_that's a fair answer, if an unconventional one. will you drive, what time, and are we hiking?_

_One, yes, I will, two, six-thirty in the morning at the library, and three, yes, if you want. I’m still figuring out the plan._

She rolls her eyes. _of course. classic cooper_

_Hey, at least I'm upfront about it._

As agreed, she walks to the library with a backpack, warm clothes, and her hiking boots, which still have dried mud on them from the last time they'd seen use. Cooper is there two minutes early, in a cherry-red SUV with vanity plates reading POETIC. She waves at him from the steps, and he jumps out of the car and beckons. When he opens the door for her, with the most ostentatious bow she's ever seen from a man outside of a stage performance, she can't help but laugh.

The seats of Cooper's car are quite comfortable, and she takes a few minutes to settle herself before looking over at the driver's seat and asking "Where, exactly, are we going?"

He shrugs. "The mountains."

" _Please_ tell me you have more of a plan than 'the mountains'."

"What if I said that I didn't?" He looks over at her and sees the exhausted expression on her face, then chuckles. "I do, actually, have a plan, though. We're going to Crow Tree Trailhead. I figured we'd wander around on one of the paths there and see how far we get."

"Sounds good to me."

The drive is less than half an hour, but Cooper fumbles for an aux cord at a red light quite early on. The music he plays is mostly foreign to her (quiet songs, with simple backing parts and complicated harmonies, and a few more sea shanties than she'd expect from a city man who moved to the plains) but she doesn't dislike it. Cooper hums along to some of them, and half the time they're driving, he's got a wistful grin on his face, bordering on nostalgic.

Once they make their way up the bumpy dirt roads and park awkwardly on an uneven gravel shoulder, they set out. Cooper's got a backpack too, and some very nice hiking boots. His shoes make her think he might actually know what he's doing. 

His skill as a hiker, however, remains to be seen. "You're going too fast," Cooper complains for the third time as they scramble up a steep slope. They're starting to make their way above treeline; the forest around them has diminished into a few patches of scrubby trees and alpine wildflowers. Cooper is panting, a few steps behind her; she's barely broken a sweat. 

She turns on her heel and waits for him to catch up. "Sorry. I should slow down, so you can breathe easier."

"I'm not used to this," he mumbles. "We're so high up, the air's really thin."

"Yeah. That's how the mountains work, sweetheart." The smile she gives him is heavily sarcastic, but the twinkle in her eyes lets him know she doesn't mean it unkindly.

"Sweetheart? Is that a patronizing epithet or an affectionate nickname?"

She shrugs, not sure what to say. If she's being entirely honest to herself, it's a little bit of both. "You have such nice boots, but you don't actually hike very much, do you?"

"They're new," he protests. "I don't have much time, and I've only lived here for a little while."

"Ah, yes, I keep forgetting you're a newcomer."

"Why's that?" 

"I've just got used to you, that's all."

Cooper's breath is coming easier now. "I'm glad. I've gotten used to being your friend, too."

She nods and brushes the strands of hair that have escaped from her braid out of her face. "Shall we continue, then? You can lead."

He nods and starts walking, and she matches his pace. 

It takes them two hours, but they eventually make it through boulder fields and along alpine streams, to the top of the mountain. The wind whips through them; she's wearing all the clothes she brought with her, but the chill still seeps through. Cooper is red-faced and breathing heavily when they sit down at the summit. 

The view is well worth it, though. Mountains stretch on in all directions, aspen and pine forests blanketing the valleys. Far off, at the top of the highest mountains, she can even see snowcaps. Sitting on a rock together, they share a cinnamon bun he produces from the depths of his pack. She's got a sense that there's nowhere else in the world she'd rather be than with Cooper in a strange wilderness. Usually she keeps her focus on what is safe, but the wild untamed land and Cooper's eyes make her wish she were brave enough to risk it all.


End file.
